Information about consumer confidence or consumer sentiment is useful for a variety of purposes. For example, information about how consumers feel about the state of the economy may be used by manufacturers, employers, and/or individuals as they make short-term or long-term employment, purchasing, or forecasting decisions. Some well-known consumer sentiment or consumer confidence indices include the University of Michigan consumer sentiment index, the Bloomberg consumer comfort index, the Consumer Confidence Index (CCI), the Consumer Confidence Average Index (CCAI), and the Gallup economic confidence index. Those indices are based on surveys of a number of individuals. Consumers are polled regarding confidence in the economy, and the results are aggregated and reported as an index. Indices formed in this manner may be deficient and/or biased based on the sample size, because only a small number of individuals can reasonably be interviewed. Furthermore, such responses may be unreliable due to the intrinsically subjective nature of the polling process, e.g., regarding bias based on media exposure, personal situations, etc.